


Bubbling Over

by musikat18



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Also fluff, Anxiety Attacks, Awkward Bones is Awkward, Blood and Injury, Bubble Wrap, F/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 06:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16848973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musikat18/pseuds/musikat18
Summary: It isn't easy being a nurse who has panic attacks triggered by blood. Your friend Christine gives you a way to keep calm when you need it, but your concerns about what some other members of the medical team might think of you for using it makes for a couple issues.





	Bubbling Over

**Author's Note:**

> This fic does feature descriptions of panic attacks, so if that isn't your thing, I encourage you to skip. Otherwise, happy reading!

You had absolutely no idea how you would have made it without Christine’s help. It hadn’t been the nursing part you were nervous about when you entered Starfleet...your history of pharmaceutical research had been helpful in that area of training.

No, what made you so nervous was your anxiety over blood.

In hindsight, you should have requested for a transfer the moment you were assigned to the USS Enterprise, but you had qualms in the question itself; you didn’t want to look like a slacker.

So, you accepted your assignment and hoped for the best.

The first time you had an incident on board, it was just during a (what you would later learn was quite common) engineering accident-- one of the newer engineers had managed a nasty slice on his arm with a rusted piece of metal. Christine grew confused when she saw you disappearing into an exam room, trembling like the hands of the ensign before her, when the engineer came in with the oozing red gash instead of looking for gauze and disinfectant.

“Y/N?” she had asked gently, the door opening with a rush of air. You had your knees curled up to your chest, eyes shut tightly, and breaths shallow. In an instant, she was by your side, hands at the ready to calm you if you would allow it.

“Are you feeling okay?” her steady voice prodded ever so carefully.

“I...I don’t...blood….”

You didn’t have to try and make yourself speak anymore-- she understood what you meant.

“Is it okay if I touch you?” 

You shook your head no, and Christine chewed on her lip in thought. With an almost audible ding from the idea popping into her head, she quickly moved to one of the storage closets, hoping to find her new plan to bring you back to reality.

When she returned, the pounding in your ears just barely allowed you to detect a faint popping noise. Your eyes opened to see Christine’s face filling your vision, giving you a warm look and holding a roll of bubble wrap.

“Can you hear it?” she asked softly, continuing to pop. Your breathing still far outpaced a resting pace, but your trembling slowed as you latched onto the sound like a lifeline. “Just focus on that...that’s good, you’re doing great. Here, try popping it yourself.”

You forced your hands to steady as you gingerly grasped the roll in your hands, the ringing in your ears slowly being replaced by your decelerating breath and a gentle, steady popping.

“Are you feeling better?”

You nodded wordlessly, still catching your breath.

“Do you want me to ask Doctor McCoy to move you to low-priority assessments only?”

You flushed with mortification at her words, which she mistook for a sudden relapse of panic; if your boss (not to mention, hopeless crush) knew about the condition you perceived as weakness, you were almost certain you’d have to transfer out of sheer embarrassment.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry...just keep popping.”

Your fingers continued to move across the roll, and you waited a few minutes to be certain your voice had been found again.

“I don’t want him to know about this. My weakness shouldn’t get in the way of his work.”

She looked almost sad that you would see yourself that way, but she didn’t comment on it.

Christine mused, “It isn’t often that we keep bubble wrap in the medbay. Honestly, I think this roll is more than a year’s worth of supply shipments old...but, if you wanted me to add it to our regular order, I’d be happy to keep you some in supply if you feel like it helps you.

“It does,” you gave her a small smile of appreciation. “Thank you, Chris...please...keep this quiet?”

When she felt certain you had come down from your panic attack, she gave your shoulder a gentle squeeze. 

“Of course. It’ll stay between us.”

-

“Nurse Y/L/N?” Leonard called with a frown, not even looking up from the ensign at the biobed. “Is there any disinfectant in the storage closet?”

“Um…”

You didn’t respond right away, which he’d discovered was out of the ordinary for you. Prompt, diligent, and knowledgeable about medicines, you were fast reaching the Chapel-tier in his ranking of _how much do I appreciate this nurse._

(He hadn’t said it aloud, of course, but it certainly helped that you were sweet and kind and exceedingly pretty.)

Leonard turned his head to see that you had disappeared from your station but had left one of your lower desk drawers open. Curiously, there were no medicines or files-- only popped rolls of bubble wrap.

When you returned, you had a vial of disinfectant in one hand and a square of bubble wrap in the other, crackling and popping the sheet as you tried not to look at the sanguine coating on his examination gloves. 

“Here it is,” you said.

“Thank you,” he tried to meet your eye, but you were adamant to keep your eyes on your desk. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m alright,” you insisted quickly. “Thank you….” Without another word, you delicately moved around him, working to keep your breath steady as you gathered the bubble wrap from your open drawer and disappeared back towards the medbay storage closet.

Berating himself for having scared you off, he returned to his patient, not knowing that the opposite was true.

-

“I’m sure we’re almost there, Bones! Don’t be so grumpy,” the captain cheerfully suggested.

It had been three hours since you, Dr. McCoy, and Captain Kirk had started towards the rendez-vous point, so both you and the doctor were feeling less than confident in the captain’s navigational skills.

“That was what you said an hour and a half ago,” Leonard griped. “If I don’t get back on that ship and out of this heat, I’m gonna fix your face five ways from Sunday.”

“How can you stand to work with him all day, Y/L/N?” Kirk nudged you with a false whisper. “You’re braver than I am.”

“Grit, determination, and a secret stash of chocolate, sir,” you played along. McCoy tried not to feel even a bit slighted (you were only joking, he supposed) at your comment, though he suddenly spotted a much bigger issue.

“Y/N!” he barked, pulling you aside as a large leaf firmed up by you and the captain and slashed Jim across the chest, narrowly missing you. Even in the strong arms of your clearly concerned crush, you felt your stomach knot and your lungs tighten at the sight of red liquid starting to gush from the captain’s wound.

“Dammit, Jim!” McCoy gently squeezed your arms and rushed to the captain’s side, the blond sliding himself across the ground to move out of harm’s way. Your fingers quaked as you began rifling through your medpack. She had promised to pack some before you left, but--

A ragged breath left your throat at the sight of a folded-over piece of bubble wrap sitting at the bottom of your medkit, marked by a small note of encouragement in Christine’s neat handwriting. As you began to press into the bubbles, releasing a refreshing snap of air from each one, you started to be able to focus on McCoy’s frantic cries for assistance in finding bandaging to suffice until the dermal regenerator on board could be reached.

His hazel eyes flitted between your face and your bubble wrap, brow wrinkling in concern and confusion. You turned your eyes to your medkit in shame, finding the roll of bandages and wordlessly passing it to him.

He had meant to ask you about it upon your return, but his shoulders sank when he saw you moving far ahead of the doctor and the captain, keeping your eyes on the pristine floor as you went.

-

“Hey, Chris?”

The head nurse poked her head in McCoy’s office, where the man himself was going over medical supply receipts.

“What is it?” she leaned on the open doorway.

“What’s with all the bubble wrap? We don’t need that.” 

“We do, actually,” Chris picked her words carefully. “It’s...supplemental material.”

“Supplemental material?” Bones frowned. “How so?”

“It’s not my story to tell,” Christine said firmly. 

“So you’re not going to tell me why Nurse Y/L/N has rolls of it all over the medbay?”

You were quietly approaching the door, hoping to retain the courage you’d mustered up to offer the CMO a companion over lunch break, though you couldn’t tell what Christine had to say to the statement that stopped you in your tracks.

He knew. Of course he knew; you couldn’t, after all, go forever without him looking through the supply request logs.

“Dammit, Christine,” you heard Bones sigh. “We can’t just let people have things without explanation. She’s got it in her desk, in her medkit, in space where she needs to have medical supplies. Either let me know what it’s for or I’m going to have to discuss it with her directly.”

Embarrassed, you tried not to let out a squeak of shame, but Christine became alerted to your presence, whirling a glare on the CMO before wordlessly walking off. Leonard had no idea what had set her off until her departure revealed your reserved form, and suddenly, he felt like the biggest ass in the Alpha Quadrant. 

_Dammit, Leonard,_ he cursed himself. _You fucked it all up again. Stop ruining things for her._

“Do you need something, Nurse Y/L/N?” he did his best to look friendly, approachable. Your nerves did not seem to back down.

“I…” you suddenly felt sheepish, foolish about your anxiety and your damn bubble wrap and your stupid crush on this man. “I was just wondering if I could be moved to Beta shift...um, under Doctor M’Benga.”

His heart broke for you and scolded his assholery, but having no way to plausibly convince you to stay short of falling to his knees and begging you not to leave his shift if only for his selfish need to see your smile, he simply prompted, “Are you sure? Is it one of the nurses? Is someone bothering you?”

“I’m sure,” you nodded. “I just...think it’s better that way.”

_Shit,_ he thought. You knew. You had figured out his damned stupid crush on you and wanted to run as far away as possible, which he didn’t blame you for. 

Leonard would have run from his messed-up ass, too.

“Sure...can you wait until next week when we get our new batch of Academy graduates?”

You nodded.

He felt a little less empty when you faked him a smile and headed to the mess.

-

It could have waited one more week. Just one more week, and you could have survived it.

Instead, there just had to be an incident that McCoy required your assistance for.

You scrubbed in and tugged on your gloves, ready to jump into action, but your own blood froze at the sight of the security ensign with one leg missing and blood gushing from the hole.

“Y/L/N, are you ready?” 

McCoy’s voice felt far away, lost from the ringing in your ears. Your surgical mask felt suffocating, but your hands were too weak to tear it off. You tried to make your mind make sense of where you were, but there was so much red in your vision...too much red. The edges of your vision were growing fuzzy, and you grasped the closest thing that felt like it could have been your bubble wrap to desperately ground you.

Instead, you felt the slick fabric of McCoy’s scrubs, your breaths shortening as the doctor looked confused and scared, though your pounding head couldn’t fathom why, anymore.

You didn’t even feel your knees when they gave out and white enveloped your vision.

There was a faint beeping at your side when consciousness began to swirl in your head. For a brief moment, you felt a surge of panic when you remembered what had happened to you prior to your awakening, but you quickly realized your surroundings were very different; instead of an operating room, you were in recovery, lying on a biobed with your very upset boss sitting nearby.

A wave of memory washed over you, and you suddenly felt very sheepish.

“Doctor McCoy,” you said quietly. “Um...I’m sorry. I can ex-”

“No, it’s not your fault, darlin’,” he said quickly. “I...it’s my fault. I should’ve asked you about your hemophobia sooner...though, I had no idea about it until I asked Chris.”

“It was about time I told you, anyway,” you shrugged. “It was dangerous of me to keep it from you.”

“I shouldn’t have said what I said, though, about your bubble wrap...I’m assuming you heard that, based on your shift change request.”

You wanted to badly to deflect his kindness, “...I might have heard part of it.”

“If you ever need anything,” he sobered even more from his serious tone, “just tell me. Please. I don’t want anything like this to happen to you, again...especially when it was my fault for letting it happen in the first place.”

“But I was afraid to tell you,” you said quickly. “I just wanted you to not worry about me.”

“Darlin’, I want worry about you every day, if I can...you deserve the world, and I’ve just fucked it up for you,” he said, catching you by surprise.

“I...I’m sorry?”

His brow furrowed in confusion. 

“I thought you knew. Isn’t that the other reason why you wanted to change shifts?”

You decided honesty was the best policy, “I..have no idea what you mean.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face. There was no avoiding it now.

“I...I like you,” he said, trying to explain in a way that didn’t make him sound like a complete idiot. “More than a co-worker. I just assumed you were offended, so you wanted to get away.”

Your infinite wisdom prompted you to blurt out, “Why would I want to go away from you? I like you back!”

Neither of you looked at each other for a long time, before you both looked at each other at the same time.

“Well, I guess we both benefited from this whole debacle,” he said with an easy smile. “...If you’ll still have me. I’ve been an ass, I understand if you’ve changed your mind.”

You smiled and gently took his hand.

“If I didn’t like you at this point, you’d feel it,” you quipped. Beaming like you’d never seen, he lifted your fingers to his lips.

“I promise bubble wrap at every supply drop and coffee every morning to make it up to you.”

“I think that sounds like a nice arrangement,” you agreed. 

There was nothing to hide, now, after all. Perhaps that was the way it was always supposed to be.

Perhaps that would be your first step to making every day better.


End file.
